Customer-Enabled Evaluation and Control of Communication Center Agent Contact

ABSTRACT

A communication center has agents operating at workstations and enabled to interact with customers, a router for routing incoming transactions from customers to agents, and routing rule sets associated with specific customers. Individual ones of the rule sets include one or more contact constraints set by the customer associated with the rule set.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention is in the field of communication center technology, andpertains more particularly to enabling customers of communicationcenters to evaluate agents of the center and to exercise some measure ofcontrol over contact with agents.

2. Description of Related Art

Communication centers and related technology are very well-known in theart, and most people have had experience with contacting a communicationcenter for any of a variety of services. For example, vendors ofelectronic appliances, banking services, insurance companies, and anearly inexhaustible supply of businesses have reason to deal with largenumbers of clients seeking service, through communication centers.

These communication centers were until relatively recently before thefiling of the present application termed call centers, because thetechnology applied in the main to telephone calls; originallyconventional connection-oriented switched technology (COST) calls, andmore recently data-network telephone (DNT) calls. More recently suchcenters have expanded to provide communication through text messaging,emails, chat rooms, and any and every means of communication.

It is true, as stated above, that most people, as of the time of filingthe present application, have had some experience with one or morecommunication centers, and, unfortunately, the experiences are notalways rewarding. It is common for callers to be routed to queues, suchas in an automatic call distribution (ACD) system. These delays can befrustrating, and technology has advanced to offer call back services andthe like, wherein a caller may elect to be called at a certain time andplace of the callers choosing.

After being connected to an agent, a caller may sometimes discover, evenafter the delay, that the agent is the wrong agent, and the call must bere-routed. And even when the connection is to an agent that might help,not all agents are equal and always even-tempered and helpful, and notall callers are compatible with all agents. Customers may quite oftencome away from such an experience dissatisfied or angry.

Since happy customers are a desirable outcome of nearly all contacts, ithas occurred to the present inventor that it would be in the interest ofan enterprise that uses call centers to have access to the opinions ofcustomer/callers relative to the performance of agents of the center,and it might also be desirable and beneficial to even allow some controlby callers of to which agents their calls might be directed.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The inventor, in an effort to enhance customer satisfaction, andtherefore the potential for future business for an enterprise hosting acommunication center for providing services to customers, has determineda need for customers to have some input in setting rules for routingtransactions of those particular customers to agents, under certainconditions.

In one embodiment a communication center is provided, comprising agentsoperating at workstations and enabled to interact with customers, arouter for routing incoming transactions from customers to agents, androuting rule sets associated with specific customers. Individual ones ofthe rule sets include one or more constraints set by the customerassociated with the rule set.

In another aspect of the invention a method for managing contactpreferences in a communication center is provided, comprising steps of(a) providing customers during or after an interaction with an agent amechanism for indicating one or more preferences regarding futurecontacts with the same agent; (b) storing constraints input fromcustomers in rule sets associated with specific customers for use by atransaction router; and (c) using a customer ID, accessing the storedconstraints by the router, and incorporating the constraints in routingin the event of a subsequent transaction from a customer.

In yet another aspect a router for routing transactions to agents in acommunication center is provided, comprising a mechanism for identifyinga customer upon receiving a transaction to route, stored rule setsassociated with individual customers, and a mechanism for finding a ruleset associated with the customer who initiated the transaction, and forapplying the rule set in routing the transaction.

In various embodiments of the invention, for the first time a mechanismis afforded for customers to set routing constraints.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram of a communication center in an embodiment of thepresent invention.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of an interactive window in a display forinitiating or editing a rule set in an embodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a communication center 17 connectedthrough both a publicly-switched telephone network (PSTN) and anInternet-Protocol Network Telephony (IPNT) network 15 to customer phonesrepresented either by telephone 12 or 14, and to customer computerstations represented by station 16. This diagram is meant to beexemplary of communication service centers in general, and not to bespecifically limiting in embodiments of the invention. It is well-knownthat there are a wide variety of ways such communication centers may beimplemented, and some may provide media and services that others do not.

In exemplary center 17 agent stations are represented by stations 31,33, 35 and 37, and each agent station is illustrated with a telephone(47, 49, 51 and 53), and a computer (39, 41, 43 and 45). These arestations where agents work in the communication center and to whichcalls and other transactions from customers and others may be routed andconnected. The four stations illustrated are exemplary, and there may befewer or many more agent stations. Moreover, some agents associated withthe center may work at home or other sites (remote agents), and stilloperate as agents of the center. Further, the architecture at agentstations may vary widely as well, and there are many sorts ofcommunication devices that might be used, and many sorts of computersexecuting many sorts of software.

In center 17 agent stations are shown interconnected on a local areanetwork 55, which is common, and several servers 57, 79 and 77 areillustrated as well. The servers may store data and execute software foruse by agents. For example, one of the servers may be a statisticalserver (Stat Server) keeping track of transaction activity, callduration, and much other information for use by agents, otheroperational software associated with the center, and also by routingfunctions associated with the center.

A telephony switch 27 is shown connected to agent stations by internaltelephone lines 56, and by a trunk line 23 to a network-level switch 19in PSTN network 13. Switch 27 receives incoming calls from switch 19 androutes same to agents at agent stations. Such calls are typically queuedand routed by software running as a part of a computer telephonyintegration (CTI) server 67, which is enabled to monitor alltransactions of switch 27, and also to control switch 27.

In its routing functions CTI server 67 may access information stored andupdated in other servers, such as the Stat Server described above, andmay make routing decisions based on many factors, such as load, callerID, agent skill, and much more.

In this particular center an ISPN server 29 is illustrated as connectedto LAN 55 and to a server 21 in Internet 15, also connected to a CTIserver 22 by connection 24. Another CTI server 61 connects to switch 19in the PSTN by connection 65, and the CTI servers are interconnected bylink 66. The CTI servers may thus communicate on lines separate from thecommunication lines, to coordinate activities of the switches and nodesto which they are connected.

Switch 19 in the PSTN in this example receives calls from customers, thecalls represented as coming from telephone 12, which is meant to berepresentative of all PSTN capable devices that customers might use. Insome cases such calls may originate in different networks in differentprotocols, and may finally arrive at switch 19, to be routed on toswitch 27 in the call center.

IPNT calls are received by server 21 in the Internet network, fromcallers and devices represented by telephone 14, which is meant torepresent all sorts of devices that may originate IPNT calls. Such callsmay originate at widely variant sources in different formats, and may beconverted and routed in different ways before reaching server 21. Atserver 21 such calls are routed on to server 29 in the communicationcenter, where they may be further routed on LAN 55 to agent stations.The agent stations may handle these calls using software executing onstation computers, or by other devices (smart telephones and the like).The telephones and computer indications at agent stations are meant torepresent all of these sorts of devices that might be used. Server 29has access to Stat Server as well, and may execute the same or similarsoftware for queuing and routing transactions that may be used by CTIserver 67 in routing PSTN calls. In another embodiment there may be aCTI server connected and operable with server 29 as well, and in anotheran integrated switch and server may handle and route both ISPN and PSTNcalls.

Other sorts of transactions than IPNT calls may be sent to communicationcenter 17 by customers in this example, such as emails, text messages,chat sessions, and more, and these are represented as originating atcomputer 16, meant to represent all sorts of devices that may connect toInternet 15 in all sorts of ways, and originate such transactions, whichmay be then routed on the server 29, and by LAN 55 to agents at agentstations.

In following description IPNT calls, PSTN calls, text messages, emails,and all sorts of other transactions originated by customers of callcenter 17 to call center agents, typically for service, are referred toas transactions, which when used should be taken to mean any or all suchtransactions, unless otherwise noted.

In a typical transaction an agent and a customer interact. Theinteraction may be in real time, as in a PSTN call, or may be near realtime, as in a chat session, or may be delayed, such as in email andemail reply. Typically a customer, especially in a real-timetransaction, may have been delayed and on hold in a queue while waitingfor an active agent, and may be impatient.

When a transaction between a customer and an agent is complete, thecustomer will invariably have a fresh opinion of the performance of theagent in representing the enterprise that hosts the communicationcenter. In some cases that opinion will be positive of the agent (andtherefore may reflect well on the enterprise). The customer who has hadsuch a positive experience may well prefer to interact with the sameagent on any subsequent contact, but would typically not be aware of anyway that might be done. Alternatively the customer may have had anordinary experience, be at least marginally satisfied, and may not careat all whether the same agent might be available again. In other cases acustomer may have had an unsatisfactory, even a bitter experience, andmight not ever wish to deal with the same agent, and still would notknow how to accomplish such a constraint.

In an embodiment of the present invention the customer is enabled toregister his/her opinion with the enterprise, and to exercise at leastsome measure of control over future contacts. A key element in theinvention is that, as described above, a customer may have no notion ofhow an opinion and/or contact control may be exercised. So, in anembodiment of the invention the functionality is provided, and thecustomer is informed of its availability.

In one embodiment a customer engaged in a live all with an agent maysimply be informed by the agent that he/she may stay connected after acall, and be redirected to a survey system that allows the customer toregister an opinion concerning the agent, the service, the product orany other opinion the customer may wish to register with the enterprise.Such surveys are relatively well-known in the art, and may be conductedlive by the same or another agent asking questions and recording orentering responses, or may be conducted, for example, by an interactivevoice response system. Server 57, for example, may be an IVR system towhich the customer, if willing, may be transferred at the end of atransaction, and the IVR may present the customer with specific yes/noquestions, or even afford the customer an opportunity to record a morenarrative recitation of an opinion.

In one embodiment one of the questions presented might be: “In furthercontact, do you have a strong preference for interacting with the sameagent in the last discussion?” Another might be of the form: “In furthercontact do you have a strong desire to avoid contact with the same agentas in the last discussion?”. An important element in the presentinvention is that a customer response “Yes” or positive indication toeither of these questions, or very similar questions, may be recorded bythe system in Stat Server 79, to be used by the routing system of thecommunication center in further routing.

As an example of such a routing constraint, a customer is informed,either by an agent in a service interaction or by an automatic message,that he/she may elect to interact with a survey system. The customerelects to participate, and at the end of the interaction with the agent,is connected to IVR server 57, which elicits a response from thecustomer that he/she indeed prefers never to interact with the sameagent again. The customer may also describe why, and the system maystore that information for use by the enterprise in other ways.

Having received the “prefer not to interact with this agent again”preference of this particular customer, the IVR system 57 stores thatinformation in Stat Server 79, or in a database such as a historicalinteraction, Customer Relationship Management or a Customer InteractionSystem database, associated with identification of both the customer andthe agent. It should be appreciated by one skilled in the art that theparticular choice of where the data stored is not essential, but ratherit is the nature of the data stored that is important to the invention.The customer ID may be a name, an origination number from a previouscall, and the like. The agent id may be an enterprise assigned ID, aname or the like, and may (or may not) include an agent station ID.

In an embodiment of this invention, routing functionality executed byCTI server 67 and server 29 accesses information in Stat Server 79 foreach call received, and in the event of a subsequent call from the sameorigination number, or somehow identified as the same caller, therouting system accesses whether the same agent is current and available,and, if possible, routes the call, or queues the new call to be routed,to an agent other than the agent the customer would prefer to avoid.

Conversely, if the information in Stat Server 79 is that the customeridentified as the caller in a new call received, has indicated thathe/she strongly prefers interacting with a particular agent, then therouter attempts to route the call to that agent, if available.

In a variant embodiment, a customer may indicate more than one agentpreferred, and even a priority preference, and more than one agent toavoid, and perhaps a priority preference, and the routing intelligencewill attempt to satisfy the constraints. In still another variant therouting system, having no good alternative may route the call to thesame agent, even though the customer has a strong preference to avoid,and may inform the customer, and give the customer an opportunity tocall back when the constraint may more readily be satisfied.

In another embodiment the transaction may be an email, or othertext-type message, such as SIM, and the customer may be notified in atext response of the mechanism for registering opinion and contactconstraint, such as a telephone number for the IVR. In a text variant ofthe invention the customer may submit a text form, with responses tocertain questions to be indicated on the form. Upon submission of theform, which is routed to a server (which may be the same as the IVRserver), the system interacts with the form, and stored the opinions andconstraints just as before; which may then be used by the system inrouting subsequent transactions. In the case of email, the router in thecommunication center, upon receiving a new email, will check the “From”address, associate with the customer, and route the new email accordingto the constraints imposed previously by the customer, such as not toroute the new email to the same agent as last time, if possible.

Again, there may be situations wherein the system cannot avoidoverriding the constraint, and the system may notify the customer insuch instance, using preferably the medium the customer used, thathe/she may get the same agent not wanted, or not get the agent desired,and give the customer an opportunity to come back at another time. Thisnotification may also indicate when the undesired agent will not beworking, or when the desired agent will be available.

In another embodiment, the routing system in the communication centermay make reservations for customers with specific agents, and theparticular agent is then notified of the reservations, and thus enabledto be available at the set and reserved time.

Embodiments of the invention are not limited to just the communicationmedium a customer may have used at a particular time when constraintsmay have been registered. In a multi-media center, customer emailaddresses, names, telephone numbers, IP addresses and the like may beassociated in the Stat Server, so, if a customer who has indicated aconstraint by email places a PSTN call at a later time, the system isable to honor the constraints, if possible.

In yet another embodiment of the invention, illustrated simply in FIG.2, a web site provides the feedback mechanism for customers to registeropinions and constraints. Window 201 may be a window in a website, suchas a website of the enterprise operating the communication center, a webpage, or a window in a third-party site. Such a web page may be providedby one of the servers of the communication center connected to theInternet network.

The content in FIG. 2 is purposely minimal to avoid complicatingunderstanding of the invention. There could be many more survey-typequestions, there could be mechanism for allowing a customer much moregranularity in stating opinions and desired contact constraints, andmany other functions might be provided as well. For example, there mightbe a media preference, call backs may be indicated, there may be amechanism for a customer to reserve a particular agent, there may be amechanism for a customer to qualify for a VIP service, either bypurchase history or payment, for example, and many other functions maybe provided. A very important element of the invention is in the abilityof the customer to set contact constraints that will be honored, ifpossible by the system in future contacts.

It will be apparent to the skilled artisan that there are manyvariations that may be made in embodiments described within the spiritand scope of the invention. Some have already been indicated, such asgranularity that might be provided in a web site for interacting withcustomers. There are many more. For example, opinion and constraint maybe provided through exchange of SMS messages and the like. Very simpleor very elaborate constraints may be provided. Enterprises may mine theinteraction history of agents with customers and constraint settings, asa way to evaluate and improve agent performance, and the like. The scopeof the invention is limited only by the claims that follow.

I claim:
 1. A communication center comprising: agents operating atworkstations and enabled to interact with customers; a router forrouting incoming transactions from customers to agents; and routing rulesets associated with specific customers; wherein individual ones of therule sets include one or more constraints set by the customer associatedwith the rule set.
 2. The communication center of claim 1 whereinconstraints in the rule sets comprise preferences for contact or foravoiding contact with particular agents.
 3. The communication center ofclaim 1 wherein, at the end of an interaction between a customer and anagent, the customer is advised of a mechanism for creating or editing arule set relative to the interaction just completed.
 4. Thecommunication center of claim 3 wherein the mechanism for creating orediting is an IVR server with functionality for interacting with thecustomer.
 5. The communication center of claim 3 wherein the mechanismis a web site.
 6. The communication center of claim 1 whereintransaction may be real-time voice transactions or text transactions. 7.A method for managing contact preferences in a communication center,comprising steps of: (a) providing customers during or after aninteraction with an agent a mechanism for indicating one or morepreferences regarding future contacts with the same agent; (b) storingconstraints input from customers in rule sets associated with specificcustomers for use by a transaction router; and (c) using a customer ID,accessing the stored constraints by the router, and incorporating theconstraints in routing in the event of a subsequent transaction from acustomer.
 8. The method of claim 7 wherein constraints in the rule setscomprise preferences for contact or for avoiding contact with particularagents.
 9. The method of claim 7 wherein, at the end of an interactionbetween a customer and an agent, the customer is advised of a mechanismfor creating or editing a rule set relative to the interaction justcompleted.
 10. The method of claim 9 wherein the mechanism for creatingor editing is an IVR server with functionality for interacting with thecustomer.
 11. The method of claim 9 wherein the mechanism is a web site.12. The method of claim 7 wherein transaction may be real-time voicetransactions or text transactions.
 13. A router for routing transactionsto agents in a communication center, comprising: a mechanism foridentifying a customer upon receiving a transaction to route; storedrule sets associated with individual customers; and a mechanism forfinding a rule set associated with the customer who initiated thetransaction, and for applying the rule set in routing the transaction.14. The router of claim 13 wherein the rule sets comprise preferencesfor contact or for avoiding contact with particular agents.
 15. Therouter of claim 13 wherein rule sets are initiated or edited bycustomers during or after interaction with an agent of the communicationcenter.
 16. The router of claim 15 wherein a mechanism for in initiatingor editing is an IVR server with functionality for interacting with thecustomer.
 17. The router of claim 15 wherein a mechanism for initiatingor edited a rule set is a web site.
 18. The router of claim 13 whereintransactions may be real-time voice transactions or text transactions.